


One Wet Rat

by duointherain



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:49:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21587143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duointherain/pseuds/duointherain
Summary: Duo is on a mission gone wrong. He's stuck in a large underground space that is filling with water.I changed the title... It used to be The Hidden Cherry
Relationships: Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

The Hidden Cherry 1/?  
by duointherain

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing  
Note: Intersex Duo, disabled Heero

He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. Duo wanted to think that the stress in his voice made him sound like an asshole and that would motivate the person on the other side of the phone. The space he was in was small, like 3 meters by maybe 5. His cigarette lighter had given him enough light to see the space, but it was back in his pocket now. “I need an analyst. It’s fucking Wednesday. There is an analyst in the office.” 

“Son, how did you get this number?” The person on the other end of Duo’s call was an older gentleman with a military air to his tone, discipline and a trust in authority. 

Duo had the discipline, but not the trust or love of authority. “Well,” Duo said, irritation rising to an irrational level, “I woulda called Une Babe directly, but I kinda need someone who can do a fucking thing for me.”

“If you’re going to use language like that, son, I’m going to disconnect the call.” 

Duo closed his eyes and thought about the water rising at his ankle, swirling around and soaking cold up his jeans. Standing on one foot, leaning against a damp wall of stones like some dank castle wall, he refocused his energy. The bastards who had deposited him in this pit had taken his primary marble and the one he’d had implantd didn’t have a lot of battery life. It was for emergencies. This was his emergency. The water wasn’t rising very fast, but it was rising. He’d already tried everything he could think of to open the doors or find the grate that ought, in a reasonable world, lead to the street above him. It was pretty clever on their part, really, dumping his ass here. He expected this whatever the place was it would open up and dump his body out into the ocean when the tide went out. 

“Sir,” Duo said, hoping his voice sounded like the scared boy he actually was, “Will you please authenticate me?”

“We’re really going to keep playing this game?” The older man sighed, “Fine, operative code please?”

“O2.”

There was a louder, more irritated sigh on the other end, a couple of clicks on some old fashioned actual keyboard. “Oh,” the man said, “passcode?”

“I’ve-fucked-up-twice-and-Chang-Wufei-is-my-king.” Duo said, trying really hard not to grit his teeth. Wu was right though, he’d never forget that no matter how much pain he was in or how much drugs he was on. 

“Major Maxwell, how can I help you, sir?” 

“I. Need. An. Analyst,” Duo growled. “I’m going to die if you don’t get me a good analyst.” 

“Sir,” the older man said gently, “A heavy winter storm put communications down everywhere on the East Coast. All calls are from the intelligence network are being routed here to Memphis. It’s the day before Thanksgiving. There’s no way to reach anyone.” 

“What’s fucking Thanksgiving got to do with anything?” Duo asked, confused and feeling defeated by details he hadn’t taken into account. “I give no shits what people have for lunch. I nee someone who can help me.” 

Jerry Addington had served in the American military for most of his life. He was seventy-three and now he served in a rarely used emergency call center of three people. He did, however, have the highest security clearances so he was reading the first page of Duo’s profile and he was not sure why a 17-year-old boy was both a major and alone on a six month-long undercover assignment. “Son, you can come to my house for Thanksgiving. I’ll teach you all about it. I see you’re in South Carolina?”

“Yeah, probably. That was where I was before the fucker hit me with car.”

“Are you injured?” Jerry said with concern. “Where is your support team?”

“Dead or flipped. I don’t know. I think my ankle is broken, probably a mild concussion, but that’s nothing new. Look, I gotta talk to someone who can open the storm vents or some shit and this water is cold as fuck. I really want to get out of it, before I drown. After I drown, I’m not gonna be as concerned, ya know?”

“I’m going to activate your tracker, is that okay?” 

Pain bounced through his brain, leaving his vision white. Duo sank down into the water, which was then up to his chest. “The water is cold. I think I said that,” he whined, teeth chattering. He said, not able to really process the guy’s question. He’d fucked something up and he couldn’t even remember what it was. “I’m gonna die. Fuck. I thought I’d be readier for this.” 

“I’ll take that as a yes.” 

“It could blow my cover,” Duo said, thoughts feeling very fuzzy. 

Jerry activated the tracker anyway. It wasn’t like it was going to do any great good with EMS already shut down up and down the coast. “I have a location on you. Look, son, EMS is down all over the city, but I got a buddy. He’s about an hour from you, but I’ll see if he can come get you. You hold the line.”

“No, no, it’s not safe. I just need the doors opened and I’ll get myself out. even if it opens out to the ocean. I can swim.” 

“Son, you can’t swim in a storm with a broken ankle.”

“Sure I can,” Duo said, really sounding like a lost boy who had just been told that his only plan for not dying wouldn’t work. “I don’t want to die. I’m having a bad fucking day.”

“I’m still here,” Jerry said. “My buddy Abu is on his way. We’ll just stay together. Keep talking to me.” 

“Fuck,” Duo said. “You know, I guess it’s okay. Ya can’t fight it off forever.” 

“Is there any way for you to get out of the water? A ledge or anything? That water is going to chill you down real bad. You could go into shock.” 

Duo scratched his ear, sighed, and felt such a deep sense of calm. He’d done his best. There wasn’t anything more to do. “I guess getting hit by that car didn’t help that neither. Are you afraid of dying?”

“I’m Jerry. I realize I didn’t tell you my name. I’m an old man. I served fifty years in the army and I guess I’m still serving. I’m not afraid of dying, but son, you’re only 17. We aren’t going to let you die.”

Duo’s face squished up, tears squeezing out onto burning cheeks. “I’m about time though. So many other people are dead. I keep dodging my turn, but marble has like maybe three minutes of battery left. Did you ever just feel really happy when you with someone? Like for no reason, just be happy to be near them?”

“Yeah, I’ve been in love before,” Jerry said. “What do you mean your marble only has three minutes of battery left?”

“It’s an implant, so ya know, only like emergency battery. Is that what that’s called? Being in love? I was in love with Heero Yuy. Well, that’s the shit. That makes so much fucking sense.” 

A crackle of static popped in the call and a new voice interrupted, business-like and rude, “Authenticate me.”

“How?” Jerry sputtered, meaning ‘How in the hell?’

“Authenticate me!” 

“Heero?” Duo wheezed, but he pushed himself back up out of the water. 

With rough emotions, Heero growled, “Authenticate me!”

Jerry gave in, “Operative code?”

“01.” 

“Passcode?”

“000000000101110000000000000101110000000001000000000000000010010000000000001110000000000000000110000000000000101100000000001101100000000000110100000000000101110100000000010011110000000000011100000000000010101100000000001001110000000000000000000000000011110100000000000011000000000000101001000000000011001000000000000110100000000000001001000000000001110100000000010010100000000001000011000000000010101000000000000111100000000000011001000000000000001100000000000001110000000000010000000000000100011000000000001111000000000001000100000000000100100100000000000100110000000001000010000000000011100100000000001100010000000000110101000000000101011000000000001010000000000000100011000000000001111100000000010010000000000000100001000000000011111100000000001001010000000000000010000000000101101000000000010110000000000001001011000000000100110000000000010101010000000001000001000000000010110100000000001100110000000001010010000000000010110000000000010011100000000001000101000000000101101100000000010100010000000000010101000000000011101000000000010101110000000000011011000000000000110100000000000010100000000000101111000000000000111000000000010100000000000000111110000000000001100000000000000011110000000000010110000000000001001000000000000001000000000000100010000000000100110100000000010100110000000000100000000000000010111000000000010111100000000001011001000000000011000000000000001110110000000000110111000000000101010000000000001001100000000001011111000000000001000100000000000001010000000000010100000000000000100000000000010001110000000000000001000000000010010000000000001001010000000000101000000000000100011100000000001010110000000000011001000000000101100000000000010110100000000001000110000000000011000100000000001100010000000001000111000000000001001100000000001000010000000001000111000000000011010100000000010010110000000001000111000000000100100100000000010001100000000000011001000000000100100000000000001111110000000000100010,” Heero said too rapidly for Jerry to process, but the computer system he was working with authenticated Heero. 

“Really,” Duo said, giggling, “That’s your passcode? Did Wu set that for you too?”

“No,” Heero said. “I set it. I will be at your location in one minute forty-five seconds. If you are dead when I get there, I will be unbearably angry and distressed.”

Duo giggled more. “Well, I wouldn’t want ta upset ya.” 

“Good,” Heero growled. 

Then Duo’s battery ran out, leaving him alone in the dark, water rising, with one leg to stand on. 

(Heero’s passcode is a binary encryption.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who thinks it's a good idea to put adrenaline in the oxygen being pushed into Duo's lungs after a near-death experience? Also cops don't like you ripping up roads.

One Wet Rat 2/?  
by duointherain

disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing

“It’s just pavement, man,” he said, shoulders forward, sensor held in his hand, stretched out to the police officer pointing a pistol at him. “It’s a life sign. There’s a guy in the sewer system. We just want to get him out.” 

It was one police officer and three black block wearing locals with a modified beam canon. 

She held her weapon steady. “We are not going to rip a hole in the road. Whoever is down there can get out the same way they got in.”

“They called for help,” the main black block speaker said, making sure his hands were steady and visible, but doing his best to keep her attention on him. “Human life means more than road. We can fix the road after we get’em out.” 

“I enforce laws. I don’t make them. Uncover your faces. Hiding your faces is illegal.” 

“Man, yer priorities are shitty. I’m telling you we’re trying to save a human life. We got maybe four minutes to restore oxygen or this guy dies.” 

“I’m not going to let you cut a hole in the road,” she growled. “Now keep your hands up. All of you are getting arrested!” 

He did as he was told, hands slowly rising, eyes locked with the cop’s. Then Ladybug was close enough and gave the cop an ebolt to the kidney. Her mouth popped open, even as every nerve in her body reset. Ladybug also caught the old fashioned service issued projectile weapon as the cop dropped. With great efficiency, the smaller member of the black block crew disassembled the pistol and tossed the parts back into the patrol car. 

Bulba, the medic in the group, squatted by the downed cop scanning her while he pulled them all back on task, “We got three minutes. Get that hole made! Cop’s fine. Gonna have a headache.” 

“Good,” Ladybug said, as she broke out climbing harnesses. “Snek, get that shit open!” 

“Working on it! It’s deep,” he said, though he already had their best weapon out. There had been daydreams about using the little beam canon on the court records building, though that wouldn’t have been much more than symbolic. They had no way to recharge it, so this was it. 

Bulba strapped into the harness as Lady put blocks under the patrol car’s wheels before planting an industrial-sized mag U bolt to the roof. That was another tool they weren’t getting back. It was with some pleasure that she thought about how the cops were going to have to replace the very frame or drive around with their U bolt on top. 

“I don’t think it’s got enough power,” Snek ground out, body-hugging the beam canon like it was a gentle jackhammer. “It’s gonna be short.” 

“I got an idea,” Bulba shouted, as he rooted through the patrol car. “Here it is!” He held it up with a grand smile. “I was never in favor of cops having military-grade equipment!” 

“Where else would we ‘shop’?” Lady asked, holding onto the rope attached to Bulba’s climbing harness. 

“Mood,” Snek said, holding up a hand as Bulba tossed the plasma rifle. “Damn, not giving this back. It’s thumbprint locked, lovely,” he said, meaning it. Holding the butt of it against his hip, he used his teeth to peel off his left glove. His left thumbpad started to glow slightly as his eyes rolled back in his head, just a bit, as if whatever he was doing was a really, really good experience. “I love their databases,” he purred, before pressing his thumb to the rifle’s sensor. It powered on like a charm. “Yeaaasss baby!” 

With a minute and a half to spare, Snek blew a hole in the road. Almost as soon as the pavement was falling, Bulba raced towards it. The edge of pavement still glowing lava hot, he and his med kit dropped into the darkerness. His lights powered on before pavement had even finished hitting the dark swirling waters. The black mask covering the lower half of his face transformed from looking like cloth to being a functioning, if still completely black, oxygen mask. While he was militia now, he had been a marine medic. He went into the water like a professional and surfaced with power and grace. 

The AI built into his left eye targeted Duo’s unconscious body and mapped the debris between Bulba and his target. Thirty seconds later, he had Duo in his arms. The chill in the water worked in their favor, giving them more time to restore oxygen to the brain before damage set in. Part of his med kit, the large backpack holding itself to him, woke as soon as he lifted Duo up. It wrapped around them both, expertly compressing Duo’s chest and sending a torrent of cold water vomit right out. The same very flexible, intelligent framework collected biodata on the patient, drugs in his system, temperature, heart rate, o2 saturation, with all the information streaming directly to Bulba’s enhanced brain. 

A small and very localized charge restarted Duo’s heart, while a face mask positioned itself over Duo’s mouth, extending down into his throat to make sure the passage was clear before slightly adrenaline-laced oxygen was pushed in. By that time, they were already halfway hauled up to the surface. 

Sirens screamed, probably biometrics from the sleeping officer calling for back up. As soon as they got close enough, Snek and Lady reached in and started to pull a still unconscious Duo up. The medkit reached long spider-like legs to either side and got Bulba up too. 

“We gotta go!” Lady screamed, trying to pull the rope free of Bulba’s harness. This would be her third strike. “Go! Go!” 

Snek had Duo over his shoulder, a blade out to cut the rope from Bulba’s harness when light flooded them from all directions. Six police cars, lights and sirens on made a circle around them. A huge floodlight came down from above, covering the police cars and the illegal rescuers. 

There is a moment of peace in knowing you’ve lost, that there’s no more fight in that moment. 

Then the cops all raised their weapons towards the craft above them. Using a bullhorn, the commander shouted something unintelligible. Whatever he’d said didn’t really matter. The craft above them popped with something like static electricity, with pretty little floaty Christmas ornaments that hit every officer at the same moment. Then the only light left was the craft above them. 

A suit, human-sized, with angel wings dropped from the center of the craft, landing on the balls of its feet and a palm. “I’m here for him,” a the suit said, before shifting into a standing position. 

“And who the hell are you,” Ladybug challenged, jumping in front of her companions. “He’s one of ours! We won’t give him to you!” 

That’s when the adrenaline-laced oxygen hit Duo Maxwell’s overwrought brain. His scream, muffled by the mask still on his face and on his throat was feral and raw. He went over the top of Snek’s shoulder like a cat trying to get away from a bath. He hit the ground on his feet and hands, scrambling forward. In a step he was on his feet, hands clawing at the mask on his face which was perfectly happy to disengage and return to the med kit. Panting, he nearly fell over the first cop, his hands roaming over her looking for any useful weapon. 

With a nightstick now in hand, violet eyes huge like they were all iris, panting he spun so his back was to the car. Eyes dilated like that, all he could see were figures standing opposite to him. “Oh you fuckers!” He growled. 

“Can we go now,” Snek whispered. “He seems fine.” 

“I’ll kick yer fuckin asses,” Duo screamed. 

The suit opened and Heero jumped out of it. He wore a flight suit unmarked by country or organization affiliation. His hair was long enough to be be held back in a small spiky ponytail. Without hesitation, he walked across the small battle zone, right into Duo’s personal space. Duo growled menacingly, his vision completely useless. Everything looked like light and dark splashes. “Stay back!” 

“No,” Heero said. 

Duo swung his stolen nightstick and Heero caught it easily in his left hand. “I’m Heero.” 

“Yuy,” Duo asked, the tension softening so much so that he let go of the nightstick. “Are we dead?”

“Not yet,” Heero said. “Let me help you?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Duo said, not even complaining when Heero swept him up into a bridal carry. Arms around Heero’s neck, Duo snuggled in close. He wasn’t convinced he wasn’t dead or dying and this was as good as it was ever going to get. “You smell good.” 

Heero did not know what to say to that. He didn’t know what to say to a lot of things that Duo said. 

A cabled platform had descended from the craft and Heero’s suit walked onto it. Heero turned to the three rescuers. “Want a ride?”

“Yeah,” Ladybug said, running onto the platform. Snek followed almost just as fast, but Bulba gave a salute and disappeared into the darkness of the town around them. 

“Your eyes are really blue,” Duo said, amazed. 

“Yeah,” Heero said, in Japanese, because well, he felt he should say something, so, “Hn.”


End file.
